In my humble opinion, nothing is a greater test of heart than sports and combat. You can train, study and read all you want but when the jaws of life slams shut, you are typically left with two choices: fight or run. Most of us assume that we will fight if the situation gets dire, but trust me, you never really know until you find yourself in danger. It is after reacting and recovering that you truly know what you’re made of. Some of you are warriors, rolling off of your opponent with his warm heart beating within your teeth, but some of you don’t have the stomach for it, and end up running away or falling victim. The deciding factor isn’t as simple as winning or losing. You have to apply pressure to your spirit, and observe what it does in the worst situations. “You… [Read more]

On one of the writing forums that I frequent, a female member asked if the popular trope of men being at odds and fighting it out before become best friends is a real one. Quite a number of men chimed in—myself included—and we let her know that it’s unrealistic. As men, we seek out other men of like interests, and we meet our comrades doing things that we love. Violence is rarely a good cause and effect of positivity in a young person’s life. The friends that I fought in High School were already friends and the beat down to establish respect is a little different from our topic today, which is bullying and the misconceptions we have of it. Coming up we have all witnessed bullying, and many of us remember sitting back tight-lipped about it wondering: Why doesn’t the kid just fight back… [Read more]

If you aren’t watching History TV’s Vikings then first of all I am mad at you, second of all I am about to fix your life. Here, click this link (right here), watch the awesomeness, then come back and finish reading this article. Vikings is where it’s at. Now when I call Vikings “the most manliest show on TV” (right now), what I mean is that it takes us to a place of raw, unbridled, machismo. seriously, I had a buddy who sat through an episode with me and he swore off skinny jeans forever after seeing Rollo (character on the show) solo an entire army with a club… Dead serious. It is the kind of show that will make your feminist Twitter activist wife cringe since the characters aren’t written to fit neatly into a 2014 ideal. The setting is dirty, grimy, and absolutely… [Read more]

One of the popular tropes in movies is the one where a masterful genius is shown to be the arch-villain up until the end when we learn that there is someone in the shadows pulling his strings. For the entire hour and a half you watch this master of strategy put the hero on his/her toes and you grow a bit of admiration for him/her. But what happens when the big reveal is shown and you learn that this “master” is nothing more than a deadly marionette? You feel disappointed with the movie and you lose respect for the villain. One of the most popular villains to lose my respect was Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. Bane could fight, he could deliver a powerful speech and he was always a step ahead of Bruce Wayne. Bane had an ideology and carried out his plans… [Read more]

I love Wonder Woman, as a person that loves action, what’s not to love about a righteous, ass-kicking Amazon? I’m talking about the modern adaptation of the character here—not the sexy, lasso wielding, dominatrix that flew an invisible jet. Wonder Woman is fearless and she is confident, she has no axe to grind, no political agenda to push, like most mythical Amazons she is all about combat and what she believes in. This makes her very palatable as a “hero” and it doesn’t give any extra weight to her sex in one way or the other. Outside of her being an Amazon, and one of Superman’s matches (in more ways than you can imagine), there is not much else to put on Princess Diana, but I move to say that her skills are enough. One would think that she could get a movie that would… [Read more]

When I went to the theater to see Man of Steel I noticed a lot of big guys in Superman shirts. Well that’s an understatement – damn near every big man was wearing a Superman shirt and you better believe that they bought them one size too small. It’s funny how Superman is somewhat of a bodybuilding icon when the character represents an alien who is genetically blessed. Superman doesn’t have to spend a quarter of his life in the gym and he doesn’t go through days where injuries affect his workout regimen or a breakdown in willpower causes him to slam a number 3 at McDonalds. But Superman is still #oneofus isn’t he? The guy wears a suit during the day so that he can blend in with the working beta male populace but when it’s time for action he rips it off to… [Read more]

It isn’t spoken about enough but like many other pink elephants in the room, the lack of true reward for the military soldier in a country that has so much is one that nobody wishes to talk about. Yet daily we see our parents, siblings, sons, and daughters put on the uniform and sign away years of their life in order to meet the needs of the state. These needs are not something that is either new, or something that will ever change as far as I can see. War is hell, but war is a part of the human experience. Unfortunately, as we all very well know, war desires warriors. As civilians we have the weight of support and gratitude for our Spartans who are lucky enough to come home with their shields as opposed to on them, but speak to many veterans and… [Read more]

In martial arts we would do 100 repetitions of basic movements in order to get it to the point of reactionary when needed. I will never forget the day when I kicked a buddy in the face for slapping me in the back of the head playfully. At the time I was competing and my teacher would have us doing those kicks all day, every day, in an attempt to remove conscious thought (over-thinking things) and let the moves flow whenever they were needed. What I didn’t realize back then is how many of life’s little things involved the same process. We commit things to memory and then we execute whenever we need them, it is the same in everything and the people who are best at it seem to retain the information better than the rest of us. In competitive video games the same holds… [Read more]